The present disclosure generally relates to health and nutrition. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to the diagnosis of a swallowing dysfunction based on the analysis of a number of swallowing-related parameters that may be indicative of same.
Dysphagia is the medical term for the symptom of difficulty in swallowing and refers to any deglutition (swallowing) disorder, which may include, for example, abnormalities within the oral, pharyngeal and esophageal phases of swallowing. Many complications can occur as a result of swallowing dysfunctions including, for example, dehydration, malnutrition, airway obstruction, dysfunctional immune response, etc. As a result, it is not only critical to detect and diagnose dysphagia and aspiration, but it is important to detect these conditions as early as possible. Unfortunately, it is estimated that approximately 80% of patients with dysphagia remain undiagnosed, which is thought to be due, at least in part, to the fact that general practitioners and nursing homes are relatively ill-equipped to diagnose these conditions. While several diagnostic tools exist for diagnosing dysphagia and aspiration, many of these tools are expensive, time-consuming, invasive, are only available in specialist centers, and may expose the patient to ionizing radiation.
Therefore, it would be beneficial to provide apparatuses and methods for diagnosing a swallowing dysfunction that are convenient, easy to use, cost-effective, provide rapid results and are widely available.